


Trust

by bad_pheasants



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Awkwardness, Cuddling & Snuggling, Day 5: Awkward Situations, F/F, Huddling For Warmth, Hypothermia, Inaccurate depictions of survival skills, Interspecies Awkwardness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:00:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21511885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bad_pheasants/pseuds/bad_pheasants
Summary: Alex and Supergirl have to huddle for warmth during the mindwipe when Supergirl blows out her powers and they're stuck in a snowy forest.
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Kara Danvers
Comments: 11
Kudos: 258
Collections: Kalex Appreciation Week 2019





	Trust

“You need to get warm.” 

Alex had been ready to work with Supergirl more closely before this, but that didn’t mean she was ready to try to coax Supergirl into cuddling to ward off the hypothermia that Alex can clearly see the signs of, now that she’s looking. 

And to think, they’d made it for a couple of hours before Alex noticed her behavior—the slurring speech, the clumsy movements. It really should’ve occurred to her sooner that Supergirl’s core temperature would probably fluctuate a lot more wildly than even Alex’s because of the shock of losing her powers and her body being unaccustomed to regulating itself this way—and in this snowy fucking forest, where Supergirl’s powers finally sputtered out between the battle site and the DEO. 

Then again, she’d been pretty preoccupied trying to make sure they both could walk, and that nothing dangerous was following them as Alex searched for a signal to contact the DEO. 

But now Alex is shoveling snow with her gloved hands in a small dip beneath a thick, low branch on a pine tree, creating a small shelter for them to conserve and hopefully recuperate body heat while Alex’s beacon continues to ping and Supergirl wraps her cape around her body, eyeing the makeshift snow shelter with groggy suspicion. 

“You’re not able to maintain your body temperature this soon after losing your powers. Your body’s freaking out and shutting things down and if we don’t keep you warm, your core temperature could drop to dangerous levels.” 

“I _know_ that.” Supergirl snaps, like she hadn’t just needed to be convinced that hypothermia was a serious medical risk. Alex closes her eyes and reminds herself that in spite of Alex’s fight training, Supergirl never had the full benefit of the kind of survival training that any DEO field agent received. She’s unprepared, and it shows. It’s dangerous, to Alex and to Supergirl herself. 

And it’s also a little bit annoying. 

It also maybe reminds Alex a little bit too keenly that Supergirl might have good reasons not to want to get too near Alex; that Supergirl knows, on some level, that the organization whose insignia Alex is wearing doesn’t care for her. Like on some animal level, she feels unsafe in Alex’s presence. 

And maybe Alex’s endurance is starting to waver, because it shouldn’t get to her, the sense that Supergirl doesn’t like or trust her—didn’t she just recently express that she didn’t trust Supergirl, herself?—but it does. 

Supergirl takes a couple steps toward her and the opening of their snow shelter and then hesitates. “Come on.” Alex reiterates. “I promise I’m not trying to trick you.” 

“Pinky promise?” Blue eyes watch Alex’s with an awareness and irony that seems out of proportion to the question. 

“Yes. Pinky promise.” Weird alien. “Come here.” 

Supergirl eyes her suspiciously, but moves towards the opening again, accepting Alex’s hand when Alex ducks into the shelter. She drops down and awkwardly shuffles in. 

The space beneath the branch is quiet, and the air is still, unlike the low-level wind biting into everything outside, carrying more fine-grained snow. Alex has a space blanket unfolded and spread over a collection of smaller, softer pine branches arranged between the blanket and the cold, heat-stealing ground like a mattress. The packed snow around them and thick branches will insulate and keep some heat in. The rest, though, they’ll have to do themselves. 

“We’re gonna have to get cozy.” Alex says. 

Supergirl stares at the makeshift “bed” with an unreadable expression that seems... upset? Sad? “Oh.” 

Alex doesn’t really have the time or spare energy to be hurt by that reaction, but she feels a twinge. “We can use your cape, too, if you unbuckle it.” Supergirl’s hands move towards the clasps at her shoulders. 

Alex helps Supergirl land on the space blanket with minimal clumsiness—the smaller space is revealing just how degraded Supergirl’s motor skills are, Alex _really_ must have not been paying attention—and then Alex is arranging Supergirl’s cape on her form, careful to cover her legs—that’s what did it, probably, she should really think about adopting pants as part of her uniform—and crawling onto the blanket herself. 

Supergirl flinches slightly when Alex lifts her cape to slide under it. Alex winces. “Sorry. I’m gonna have to join you under there. Okay? It’s gonna be face-to-face, because you’re hypothermic. And then I’m gonna pull the space blanket around us. And then we’re gonna be warm. Alright?” 

Supergirl hesitates, then nods. Alex lifts Supergirl’s cape again and slides her body under it. She tries narrating as she goes, hoping this helps soothe Supergirl’s nerves, or whatever it is she’s going through. It sort of works. 

But Supergirl is like a nervous cat in a corner, and the more it happens, the more it feels like Supergirl doesn’t trust Alex specifically. And that starts to sting. 

Alex doesn’t know why it gets under her skin, though. Why it hurts. 

Alex busies herself securing the space blanket around them and the cape loosely, so that they have room to move. Then, tighter. Finally, she starts to move closer to Supergirl under the blanket. 

Supergirl stiffens sharply when Alex’s hand lands on her waist, like she wants to recoil and barely contained the impulse. She goes still under Alex’s hand. Alex moves her hand away like she’s been burned. “Supergirl?” 

Supergirl’s jaw is tight and she’s not looking at Alex. There’s a sadness and a resignation there that makes Alex want to get defensive, because really, it makes Alex want to fix it, but Alex has the feeling again that somehow she’s the reason for that look, not some hypothermia-induced malaise. 

“I can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong.” Alex asserts, need to defend herself finally getting the upper hand. 

Supergirl says nothing. 

“Do you have a problem with me being gay?” Alex snaps, feeling raw and a little hurt for reasons she doesn’t understand. “Because it’s not like you’re my type.” 

As soon as the words leave her mouth, Alex hears them, and feels her eyes go wide in her face. Shame and embarrassment flood her. She sounds like an a resentful middle-schooler. Like some… hurt teenage boy. She feels keenly the difference between her comportment in this moment and the uniform she’s wearing—professional, _adult_ , worthy of the responsibility she shoulders. Her words sound more and more juvenile the longer they have to echo in her ears. 

Supergirl’s shocked and genuinely-hurt look in the silence following Alex’s words makes Alex want to crawl under a rock and never come out. And it goes on long enough that Alex actually starts wondering whether or not Supergirl actually knew she’s gay at all—which would be a feat, if she somehow managed to miss the haircut, the fiancee, _and_ the whole identity crisis she’s having right now. 

Alex is about to open her mouth to apologize when Supergirl finally says, “No, of _course_ not,” soft and fervent, hurt flashing through her gaze like it should’ve been obvious. 

That image is going to be burned into Alex’s brain for a long time after this, if she survives. 

Guiltily, Alex notices that this seems to get Supergirl to come around. She doesn’t flinch again as she wraps her cape around them beneath the space blanket and slides into Alex’s arms, arms winding around until they’re pressed front-to-front, and Alex feels a slow feeling of warmth start to recuperate between them. 

But it can’t make Alex any less mortified. 

They’re silent for a long time after that, it feels like, until Supergirl pulls in a breath—pauses after, considering—and asks, “You do know I’m bi, right?”

Panic washes through Alex’s body, skin-prickling and immediate and _What_. Why didn’t she hear about this? What article was it in? Is she _that disconnected_ from the queer community outside of work? Because that would’ve been _huge news_. And oh, God, Alex can hear herself stammering and all she can do is listen in mute horror in her head. “U-uhm, no, n-no, I didn’t.”

“Oh.” Supergirl doesn’t seem all that surprised. “Well… I am.” She shrugs the shoulder that isn’t stuck under the weight of her body, nonchalant and looking somewhere past Alex’s upper arm—down, and away. 

“I, uh, that’s-cool.” And then, because she can’t keep her foot out of her mouth: “I didn’t realize Kryptonians did—that.”

Supergirl’s head lifts up and back, and one eyebrow is suddenly very raised. And her face is very close to Alex’s. 

And Alex is a lying liar pants on fire because Supergirl is beautiful and also she has _freckles_ , just the very lightest dusting up close, and somehow that makes her even prettier—a different pretty, the kind Alex could imagine herself waking up to. A little reminder of the fact that if Alex pressed her lips there, on the curve of Supergirl’s cheek, her lip—that skin would be warm, and under her mouth, a living breathing body. 

“I-I mean, I didn’t realize Kryptonians had—that they conceptualized sexual orientation the same way humans did. On Earth. And, probably, in America, because regional variation and all—“ And Alex stops herself before she spirals further into nervous explaining science talk.

Supergirl’s skeptical expression fades and is replaced with one of amusement and almost _warmth_ , but there’s something sad about it, too, and it makes Alex want to talk more because clearly, Alex putting her foot in her mouth is amusing to Supergirl. 

“Well, I did spend my teenage years on Earth.” Which Alex knew already. Because… news. Which she barely has time for. Alex is too nervous to think about why she knows that right now. “And I do know pop culture.” Supergirl pauses for a moment, almost perfect dramatic effect. “But you’re right, Krypton didn’t really “do that”. So I mean, maybe it’s better to say I’m “not straight.’” 

“Oh.” Alex feels like an absolute jackass, and strangely disappointed in herself. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to assume—“ 

Supergirl smiles and looks at her wryly. “You definitely assumed.” 

Alex feels approximately two inches tall.

Supergirl shivers suddenly, and Alex realizes that she must be warming up again. Alex hurriedly un-snaps the front of her uniform jacket and pulls Supergirl as close inside it as she can without thinking. The fact that Supergirl actually _does_ more or less comply, huddling down as far inside as she can get, sliding her arms around Alex’s back under her jacket, says a lot. 

Alex curls her arms around Supergirl’s back as far as she can, trying to wrap her shoulders around her, Hulk up. Supergirl is, Alex _has_ to notice at that moment, a little broader than her through the shoulders, and it’s solid muscle—but all that muscle is apparently not helping her maintain core temperature. 

They’re lucky Kryptonians can survive at human body temperatures, Alex thinks. Although it will definitely slow her recharging even further. 

They need to get Supergirl to a sauna, she thinks. Or a hot spring. That could stave off worse effects. 

They lie there in the hastily-constructed snow shelter in a cocoon made of the combination of a space blanket and Supergirl’s cape underneath that, branches and piled snow on one side, tree on another, tree above. As Supergirl’s shivers ease and Alex’s body warms again, she becomes more aware of their position; Supergirl’s hands hanging onto her back, tight between her jacket and her undershirt, having untucked her outer shirt and snuck her hands underneath it, wrapping them up in the body-warm fabric. It feels a little odd, realizing that there’s a superhero borrowing her body heat, and burrowing into her shoulder. It also feels… kind of badass. To be providing body heat for the Girl of Steel. 

And Alex sincerely regrets accusing Supergirl of being unfeeling and inhuman. 

And Alex should definitely not be this distracted by the feeling of those hands on her lower back. This is a serious life-or-death situation, not… snuggling. 

Alex tries to be casual and move her mind and the not-conversation on to something else. “So… you know pop culture?” 

She gets a weird look in response to that, because no rational human who doesn’t live as a hermit on a mountain somewhere actually says those words in that order. 

“Um. I mean—Movies? D’you like movies?” 

She sees that flash of pain again, but then gets a considering, head-tilted look. “I do.” It comes out softly. 

“Oh.” Alex gulps. “Well—what do you like?” 

Now she gets a little bit of a smile. Supergirl seems to relax a little. 

“Lots of things,” Supergirl shrugs, looking down. She looks back up. “I really love _The Wizard of Oz_.” 

“Oh, cool.” Alex furiously racks her brain for the Autostraddle articles she mainlined when Maggie first directed her to the site. “Did you ever see, uhm, _Wicked_?” 

“Yes!” Supergirl’s arms tighten and she almost bounces. “I loved it, that was when I got into musicals.” She stops, suddenly sober. “I wasn’t really allowed to get up on stage, otherwise I could get too much attention.” She brightens again. “But I really like musicals. Especially _Wicked_.” 

Alex has no idea what to do with that information. “Nice.” _Keep the conversation going, dipshit._ “What other movies do you like?” 

Supergirl looks at her consideringly. Then, softer: “ _Lilo & Stitch._” She says. Alex isn’t sure if Supergirl’s aware of the lightly anxious way one of her hands picks up and taps and traces in a pattern on Alex’s back through her undershirt—but Alex sure is. Supergirl’s hand stills after a moment, like whatever was distressing her has passed. Before Alex can say anything to try to ease the tension, though— “What about yours?” Her tone gets a little warmer and curiouser. 

“Oh.” Alex hadn’t been expecting any question in return. “Um—Terminator.” 

Supergirl relaxes, a smile touching her face. “Ah. So you’re a sci-fi girl.” 

“Uh—yeah. I guess so.” It hasn’t really occurred to her that that’s kind of on-the-nose until just now. 

“What d’you like about it?” There’s a soft curiosity that makes this feel somewhere between an interview and a date. 

Actually, “date” is pretty on-the-nose. The careful ask, the open format of the question. The sense of weight in the silence afterward. 

“Um—“ Alex thinks about it. “Sarah Connor.” Her face flames. That’s so… _gay_ of her. 

Supergirl laughs, like she’s surprised by this. “Linda Hamilton. Alright. I get it.” There’s a distinct tone in her voice that makes Alex painfully aware of the fact that Supergirl does, in fact, _get it_. 

Supergirl suddenly shivers again, and Alex tightens her arms, rubbing her hand up and down Supergirl’s back as she shivers. They seem to have decided that awkwardness can wait. 

Out of nowhere, Supergirl starts chuckling. Alex frowns. “What?” 

“Nothing, it’s just—we’re in a space blanket.” 

“What?” Alex repeats, not getting the reference. They… are in a space blanket. It’s part of Alex’s field carry. 

“My cousin—this was the blanket my aunt and uncle sent him with. He gave it to me as a gift when I first started using my powers. It’s held up a little longer than my other capes.” Supergirl’s voice goes soft with affection, and it has Alex nervously looking around, even though there’s no way to see if anyone else is there, because she sounds exactly like Kara, sometimes, and it makes her _worry_ , so much, and she can’t help it—“But yeah. Space blanket.” Supergirl tilts her head and looks Alex in the eye, like she’s gauging her reaction. 

“Oh.” That’s… emotional. And Supergirl is giving her this faintly expectant look, like she’s watching for a reaction, and suddenly, Alex is on one of any number of disastrous dates, never knowing exactly how to explain _herself_ even though she’d perfected her cover story within months of joining the DEO. “That’s… sweet.” It is. And it makes this whole situation feel that much more intimate. Alex feels her forehead scrunch as her brain processes that statement. “And… funny?” She looks at Supergirl and finds one raised eyebrow and a questioning wry smile and snorts, because it’s a terrible pun. “It’s funny,” She admits. 

Supergirl relaxes, and Alex isn’t sure if that’s in a good or bad way. 

“So,” When Alex finally comes up with her own conversation-restarter, she (of course) manages to skip straight to “awkward and maybe borderline offensive”. “How come I don’t know your name? Did you just… never get around to telling me?” 

Supergirl goes still. And before, Alex always interpreted it as hostile, as ceding ground—as her point driving home. _If you don’t trust me enough to tell me your name_ , the logic behind it says, _Then why should I trust you to have my back?_

Even leaving aside the fact that Supergirl _has_ had her back, even when the DEO was being obstinate about her real identity—that’s not what Alex feels right now. Supergirl flinches away, hands releasing, shutting down. It’s a full-physical reaction. 

“You don’t know?” Her voice is soft, and a little disbelieving, and Alex _would_ shoot something snarky back about celebrities and _Egotistical much?_ if Supergirl wasn’t so clearly upset about it. There’s a pause, and Supergirl clearly swallows and gathers herself. “It’s in the news.” 

Alex racks her brain, and a headache starts pulsing behind her eye. Alex doesn’t have time for this—or, she thinks, the runway to survive with a goddamn migraine. She _should_ have an Advil on her somewhere, though. 

Seeing as Brainy thought to include an actual _space blanket_ in this nifty little pack of nanotech cards, maybe he thought to include a first aid kit. 

“Yeah, well. News isn’t really something I watch all that often.” Is all Alex can say. 

Supergirl is silent for a long time after that, like she’s absorbing the information. Alex… isn’t sure what about this could cause this response. Sure, it’s dickish to forget someone’s name when you work with them for years—but also, they’ve never exactly been on a first-name basis. At least, no more than Supergirl is with any of the other agents. 

“If I tell you, will you use it to hunt down my family?” There’s a sardonic edge to Supergirl’s voice when she finally speaks. She doesn’t lift her head the few inches it’d take to look at Alex’s face. 

“No.” Alex feels naked, suddenly. She hasn’t managed to show herself particularly worthy of Supergirl’s trust—actually, she’s been an outright ass—but she’s suddenly very aware that Supergirl is very much at her mercy right now. Not that her hand-to-hand combat skills are _bad_ ; Alex trained Supergirl herself. 

But Alex… also trained Supergirl herself. And the situation is not one that favors Supergirl’s survival. Alex could probably be fine on her own; Supergirl, not so much. 

Why doesn’t she even know her _name_? Alex trained her, and they worked together so closely for so long; did she have so little trust in Alex this whole time? 

But Alex supposes whatever suspicions Supergirl had turned out to be well-founded, all things considered. 

Alex doesn’t feel great about any of that, or anything she’s said recently since Supergirl was released from the DEO, and it hits her just how much trust Supergirl is even showing her right now—or how dire the situation is for her. 

And, fine, Alex _didn’t_ always trust Supergirl; she remembers that much. Hell, the DEO was able to capture her at one point. She was… Alex remembers arguing with Hank that Supergirl was a liability. That’s how green she was. 

But she survived. She made it this far. She meant everything she said. She kept her word. She trusted J’onn, and Alex, and she kept _their_ secrets when they needed her to, and she saved _their_ lives, not just as some PR stunt or superhero flex, she’d fought against her own _people_ on their behalf, and maybe Alex owes her even just a _fraction_ of that trust in return. 

And she turned up to a fight knowing that Alex and potentially the DEO would be there, and blew out her powers—potentially risking capture—to keep Alex and the DEO agents with her safe. 

And all Alex has been able to see this whole time is Haley’s endless iteration of _“alien, can’t be trusted unless we control it”_. 

“I won’t,” Alex repeats quietly, “And—you don’t have to tell me. Forget I said it.” 

Supergirl looks at her, and her eyes are sad, but also old, so old. “Would you tell Haley, if she asked?” 

“No. At least—I wouldn’t—“ She shakes her head. She needs to not promise things she can’t do. She tries to imagine—lying to her commanding officer, for someone her CO fired? For an _alien_? For someone she swore to protect the Earth from? It could cost her her career, not to mention the strength of her word, her respect, the trust of everyone around her. And even if no one knew, _Alex_ would know—

But to protect someone she fought alongside? 

And she can hear Maggie’s voice: _”Are they really all your enemy? Do you need to protect us from him?”_ Alex remembers the child, shivering and small, that they’d found while shutting down Roulette’s operation. Alex had argued that he should be housed at the DEO, because they were the only place equipped to deal with him. 

_”Or, you can let him go with us, and we’ll make sure he gets to a_ house _with a_ bed _and people in the community who’ve been taking in kids like him longer than you’ve been carrying that fancy gun with tech your R &D copied from an offworld sidearm.”_

_”Did you really think National City’s alien population wouldn’t notice humans using Thanagarian tech?”_

Haley made it sound so simple when she swept in. And Alex—

Alex could’ve resisted harder. But then Haley would’ve just found a more cooperative, ideologically-similar puppet to put in place. And Alex couldn’t let J’onn’s legacy—everything he’d worked so hard to change—just be wiped from existence. To see the DEO turned back into a weapon for… bigots. 

But Alex is starting to wonder if she’s strong enough to remember what J’onn taught her, and Maggie, and even Supergirl, under the daily onslaught of changes, little tweaks to Alex’s orders, her modifications. And Haley’s recently-revealed arsenal of… what she’s willing to do with the aliens she controls. 

Even someone she trusted, someone she worked with so closely, became like a stranger to her so easily. 

“I wouldn’t.” Alex settles on, letting out her breath in a rush. “But you’re right. Haley has ways of making people talk. Even if I don’t want to.” She looks away, unable to meet this alien girl’s eyes, this girl who’d put her life in Alex’s hands, who was _still_ putting her life in Alex’s hands. “I thought I could make a difference, even under Haley. That I could keep things from getting _as bad_ as they could. But we aren’t worth your trust.” Alex sinks into herself, and the task of keeping Supergirl warm and close and alive. 

“Kara.” Supergirl says quietly after a few long moments. “Kara Zor-El.” 

Alex closes her eyes briefly, a hot clench of anxiety and stress and weight settling in her gut. It took, what, half an hour? And she’s back to frustrated with Supergirl— _Kara_ —again. “What did I just say?” 

“I trust you, Alex.” Kara meets her gaze levelly, clear and intent. Alex has no idea what she’s thinking. But she feels the weight of it settle on her shoulders and it feels like, lately, she’s been floating off into space, no direction, no compass. But it settles into place like something she needed to know, a weight she needed to carry. “You’re worth it.” 

The certainty in Kara’s voice, her proximity, the directness of her gaze in such a close space, is inescapable, intimate, and Kara looks at Alex like she knows her down to her very core. 

Alex has had less intimacy _during_ sex. 

She could believe, for a second, that that’s all that matters—this woman, this incredible woman who has next to no reason to trust her at all, trusts her, Alex Danvers. Trusts her like Alex’s entire life isn’t a failure to live up to the promise that the people who loved her saw in her. Looks at her like she knows all of it and none of it matters. 

It’s not… _heat_ that Alex feels, or anything so crude. But it is like someone put a whole fireworks show in a pocket dimension and then put that pocket dimension in her chest and set all the fireworks off at once. 

But it can’t drown out the fact that—

“It’s not just me.” Alex manages. “It’s never been about _just me._ ” Kara doesn’t seem to know what to say to that. Alex sighs. This is probably why it took Kara three and a half years just to tell Alex her goddamn name. “Thank you.” She finally says, with probably considerably less gratitude than Kara deserves for that display of trust. “For trusting me.” 

“Of course.” Kara says, like it’s a no-brainer.


End file.
